On 9 November 2009, the Department of Energy and Climate Change unveiled the draft Renewable Energy National Policy Statement (NPS) together with another five draft National Policy Statements, one Overarching Energy NPS (the Overarching NPS) and four ‘technology-specific’ energy NPSs.

On 23 September 2009, the European Court of First Instance annulled the European Commission's decision to lower the carbon emission quotas in Estonia and Poland for Phase II of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS).

On 24 August 2009, The Department of Energy and Climate Change
('DECC') launched a Consultation on improving grid
access. Significant investment will be required between now and
2020 in order to meet the UK's climate change targets, but
the current grid access arrangements create certain barriers to
access for new renewable and other low carbon generation which
could hinder these investments.

The third legislative package, or IME 3, was published on Friday 14 August 2009 in the Official Journal of the European Union, and consists of the EU’s latest legislative measures to further liberalise its gas and electricity markets.

On 24 July the consultation period for the draft Flood and Water
Management Bill (the "draft Bill") ended. The
next steps are for the Government to assess the responses to the
consultation and the impending report from The Environment, Food
and Rural Affairs Committee, which has been scrutinising the draft
Bill.

On 31 July 2009, the Treasury introduced the Value Added Tax (Emissions Allowances) Order 2009 (SI 2009/2093) that removes VAT from supplies of emission allowances traded within the UK in order to prevent the risk of VAT fraud.

In parallel to the publication of its Low Carbon Transition Plan, the Government also published yesterday its Renewable Energy Strategy (the Strategy), which sets out in particular how the UK could meet its renewable energy targets for 2020.

The Government today published a Low Carbon Transition Plan (the
Transition Plan), which sets out a route-map for the UK to meet its
2020 targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions and expanding
renewable energy.

Following the launch of its first Q&A guide on Thursday 2 July as part of its “2020 Climate Package Series”, CMS Cameron McKenna issues today its Q&A guide on the EU’s new Renewable Energy Directive, the second guide in the series.

Following the recent EU Council meeting on the third package
proposals, the European Regulators Group for Electricity and Gas
(ERGEG) published a consultation paper on 21 October to seek
stakeholders' views on the best way forward to prepare the
EU's gas and electricity markets for the implementation of
these proposals.

Following the agreement reached in the European Council on 6
June 2008 and the positions adopted by the European Parliament on
the electricity and gas elements of the third package on 17 June
and 8 July 2008 respectively, the Council reached a political
agreement on 10 October on the remaining elements of the European
Commission's third package proposals on an internal energy
market for gas and electricity.

Ofgem, the gas and electricity regulator, has today reported the
initial findings from its investigation into competition in the
Great Britain electricity and gas retail supply markets for
domestic and small and medium enterprise (SME) consumers.